Guardian No. 12
New Hangs, Good Hangs
Sometimes paintings tell me stories. This one taught me a lesson.
This painting is obstinate and disrespectful. It did not want to let me make it. Controlling and manipulative.
As I worked, it seemed to only know one word: no.
I made marks and was confronted with outright rebellion versus curvy lines and arcs of any sort. He has twenty, maybe twenty five colors in him. Where are they? Buried deep. Painted over. He said no to every hue but three or four.
At least fifty layers deep.
It felt like The Old Man and the Sea, pulling a monster tuna into the boat alone...fought me for three weeks. The last act: a cross. It wasn’t my idea. It landed there like it was marking the spot of a historic fistfight between artist and artwork.
I had procured Holy Water after Mass that morning. And finishing the work, the fight, I launched a hopeful blessing on this enemy.
The next morning, 4 am, coffee in hand, I flipped on the studio light and saw that the painting had transformed.
You may not know this, but paintings mature between completion and final hanging. They change. They seem to become. Or maybe time allows your to see them more completely. It is like this with all of our work, especially the work you crawl into so deeply that you cannot see the whole picture while you are in it.
When I looked at him, he gave me his reasons for being stubborn. Listening to him, I realized his title, no, his name is Guardian No. 12.
This is what he told me:
“You keep talking about making art for the working man. For your friends. For people like you. But the paintings you have been making, those pretty ones with soft edges and happy colors, are not for the working man. They are for art markets. Those paintings are you painting what you think people want.
I am a painting for people who break their ass every day. Nothing comes easy to them. Why should I, or any painting, be easy on you.
I am sharp and angular and gritty like the people you say you love. I am also organized and made of calm colors. I am abrupt and soothing at the same time. I look like I was made with masonry tools and bloody hands, using colors that still fit above the couch.
I am the twelfth Guardian. My stubbornness was protecting you. I am 12 for a reason. You have been on a journey to find your true style, the one that makes you you.
Here is the secret you have to admit. Yesterday you did not like me. Today you love me.
Why?
Because you made me by exhausting all those styles and colors you use to please other people, to induce purchases. I am how you really want to paint. You have been confusing what you think people like with what you like. That is inauthentic.
Twelve is completion. Your understanding is complete. After trying every other method, you finally did it right. You have represented you. Stubborn, dreamy, intense, and always seeking calm- with fifty other colors beneath the surface.”
He then smiled for the first time: “plus, your wife thinks I’m the best new painting.”
“Now that you have represented yourself truly...you can launch.”
New Hangs, Good Hangs
(a sample of new work released this week, now posted for sale)
Large paintings are $999.00. The newly loaded gift store sells 16x20 paintings for 125.00; 3 for 350.00: 5 for 500.
About
Jason Keusch, Million Dollar Garage, 999 and more…
Ten years ago I wasn’t an artist. Now, I’ve sold work all over the country for big money. For the last five years something about that has not sat right with me.
My art is expensive. I’m proud that it fetches such a price, but it is not affordable to people like me. The people I grew up with. The people who ride Long Island trains to work. The people who build houses, pour concrete, run CAT scans, adjust claims, keep places running.
The folks who do what they say and say what they do.
Those are my people. The practical ones who would rather have a paid off truck, a good fishing spot, and a yard they are proud to mow every week than another shiny thing (unless it’s a new mower). This is us. In some way it is almost everyone.
So I am making a change. Not to the work. To the price. I am going to put my effort toward the Jimmies and the Joes, and yes, I want to be a millionaire too.
My studio newsletter is called Million Dollar Garage. It started as a smart ass name for the garage where I paint every day. Now I want to make it literal.
Turn Million Dollar Garage into a 1,000,000 dollar garage.
The goal is basically impossible. Even at New York prices it would be a stretch. To hell with it. It will make a great story.
Here is the plan. I am going to sell 1,000 large original paintings for 999 dollars each. In five years. That is 200 a year, about 17 a month. I want to make real, high quality paintings for my neighborhood and yours, all under 1,000.
A thousand dollars is still a serious buy. It should hurt a little. It is not HomeGoods. It is a commitment to this story. Right now the middle full time American worker makes about 1,196 dollars a week, so 1,000 dollars is roughly one week of pay for the middle of the country. That is who I am aiming around.
What I want you to know is this: I am trying to make paintings that people actually connect with. Not because they “get” abstract art, but because it hits something they already feel. Thoughts and feelings we all have but cannot quite say out loud. Like a language nobody speaks but everybody understands when they hear it.
The change is this. From now on, I am making these conversations for you, which means for us.
You might not want a painting. You might not like abstract art. Spoiler: there is nothing to get. You like it or you don’t... It makes you feel better about things or not...or, more importantly, it makes you feel something and you like the story behind the work.
This plan is not just about selling 1,000 paintings. It is about finding out if regular people and one stubborn artist can make a story together.
I am giving it one year to prove the concept. If I go all in and fail, I will quit the art world. I will be the guy at Speedway telling stories about when he tried to build a million dollar garage while selling fine art at reasonable prices.
If, somehow, with your support, five years from now we hit 1,000 paintings, then we get to tell a different story. A story about the American Dream, again.
